Changes
by OrangeLovePerson
Summary: After the Yule Ball, Ron ponders. (One-shot)


_**Author's note:** I don't own the "Harry Potter" - books, - movies or - characters, J.K. Rowling does. (*: p. 437, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", English version)  
_

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 **Changes**

He didn't really know what it was, that he was feeling, but he knew that he didn't like it. Not one bit. The inside of his stomach was burning with an unexplainable hatred, and his skin tingled in disgust.

There he sat, behind the thick curtains of his dormitory bed, leaning against a wooden wall in fading candle light. Staring at a stupid little figurine of his formerly favourite Quidditch player. Feeling aggressive and kind of confused. His left foot twitched every ten seconds or so, and he heard himself grit his teeth in about the same rhythm. And it wasn't really for a certain reason, it was just _there,_ this feeling of wrongness. It just existed, and it shouldn't.

But that wasn't quite true, was it?

There was a very specific reason for Ron to feel the way he did right now. There _had to be_ a certain explanation for him to start feeling such awkward, intense things, and to hate someone who used to be his idol mere hours ago.

Ron had always been someone to adjourn things, keeping his homework up until the last possible minute, letting himself relax and saving all the trouble for later. He'd only clean his room at home, after his mother asked him for it over and over again. He'd only help his father to remove the gnomes in their garden, whenever the noise would get too annoying.

And now, something else had caught up with him, he realised.

He sighed soundlessly and stared at the opposite wall of the curtain. Outside of this little cave, Harry was probably fast asleep. He also didn't have a great time, tonight, Ron pondered, after that whole Cho-and-Cedric-thing. Pretty weird, that Harry had a crush on one of the only girls in this whole freaking school, that he apparently couldn't have.

Behind the curtain of his bed, Seamus and Dean were probably recovering from a night of fun and loud music, too. Neville was probably fast asleep, as well, after spending the evening happily dancing with Ginny.

And Ron? He, himself, was sitting there and trying to figure out what the whole damned problem was, to begin with.

Something about the idea of Hermione going to the Yule Ball with Victor Krum was just wrong.

Perhaps, it was the fact that Victor Krum used to be _his_ idol, while Hermione was so uninterested in Quidditch, that she couldn't even pronounce the word "Wronski Bluff" right. Or perhaps, it was the fact that Ron had tried so very much to get that prat's attention already, while Hermione probably hadn't even known his name before the World Cup.

But something about Ron's overwhelming new hatred for Victor Krum told him, that he wasn't really longing to be friends with him any more. Ron wasn't jealous because someone else got the chance to spend time with Victor Krum. No, that wasn't the reason why Ron was so mad, why he felt anger raging in the pit of his stomach, whenever his thoughts crept back to the images of tonight...

Even the thought of it! Being friends with that cranky jerk, being all exited to see him, just because he was famous! Was that the reason why she had agreed? Why she wanted to go to the ball with him? He and Harry had practically begged her to go with one of them, because the situation was serious and embarrassing, and instead of choosing to help her two very best friends, she decided to go with _Vicky_.

Well, actually, that wasn't quite right, as a tiny voice in the back of his head reminded him. She didn't _choose_ _Vicky_ over them, he simply asked her first and she agreed. But why did she?! They could all have gone to the ball as friends, Harry, Ginny, Ron and her. It might even have been kind of fun! At least more fun than this. Of course he was annoyed at her! What good friend of Harry Potter wouldn't have been, after seeing her so openly fraternising with the enemy? And yes, that was the right term for what she had done! By letting that prick get close to her, she'd risked him finding something out about Harry! About his plans for the tournament, his fears, his weak points...

Or perhaps, he was using her in another way. Perhaps he was too stupid,- apart from Quidditch tactics, - to solve that egg riddle on his own, and was now trying to make Hermione help him! He'd probably seen her in the library plenty of times, hidden by big piles of books, lightly placing a wisp of hair behind her ear, in concentration... Or furrowing her brows in that certain way, right before smiling happily, whenever she was solving another Arithmetik problem...

It wasn't really hard to tell that Hermione was some kind of genius, for their age. Everyone could have told Krum about it. He could have noticed it by just watching her, even. Which he apparently had... Day after day, all alone in that dark library with her...

Ron clenched his fists in anger and felt his ears burn with ire once again. He'd probably stalked her, like some weird, greedy idiot, and stared at her, like all those girls always did at Krum himself. (Well, and he and Harry, but that was only once, anyway, and it was before Krum turned out to be such a jerk.)

Suddenly, a thought came to mind, a sentence she'd said right after the World Cup... Something about how brave that creep was, or so. Perhaps she'd even called him a hero, but Ron wasn't sure...

Had she _fancied_ that asshole already at that point? Did she now? Was all that "Oh, these girls are so pathetic, the way they pine for him just because he's famous!"-talk just some kind of act?

Now, he also remembered her saying things like: _"I won't tell you, Ron, if I tell you who I'm going to the ball with, you'll just make fun of me!"_. She'd basically stuck to that weird secretiveness all week, and only because he might have made a silly comment about it? Because he might have laughed about it? Ron was so far from finding this whole thing funny as mentally possible, probably. There _wasn't_ anything funny about Hermione Granger going out with Victor Krum. Awkward, how Hermione hadn't seen that coming! Instead making some weird assumptions, about how Ron should have asked her much earlier, or something...

Ron silently groaned, frustrated by his own confusing thoughts. He then grabbed the curtain next to him, stooped down over the edge of his four-poster bed, and pulled a tiny paper box out of his trunk. The one with the photos and hotchpotch from home in it.

He opened it, and grabbed the first stack of images that could be glimpsed inside.

One of it showed him and his brothers, in front of the Burrow. All of them, even Bill and Charlie. Ginny was waving from the kitchen window, in the background, Fred and George were smirking mischievously, Percy stood with an earnest, ceremonial expression between a relaxed looking Charlie and a long-haired Bill. Ron was in the middle, smiling, too, while looking around, with his hands in his pockets. Something about the look in his face in that picture made him now wonder, what exactly he had been thinking, back then.

The photo below that one showed his parents, the one below that him and Ginny. And finally, underneath a few more family pictures, Ron found the ones of him, Harry and Hermione. Most of them from last summer, some from third year, and also one made just before the start of their second grade, in Diagon Alley.

He sometimes would look at these photos, especially, after he and Harry had their idiotic row, a few weeks ago. It was kind of cool, seeing pictures of the three of them. They'd already got through so much together. Every time there was a big row, it seemed insurmountable at first, and still became not so important afterwards. And perhaps, they really would stay friends forever, him, Harry and Hermione. That thing tonight would probably not mean very much, Ron pondered, in a few days, things between him and Hermione would be normal again, he knew...

And still, as he looked at her slightly younger, slightly buck-teethier face from just one and a half years ago, he felt slightly scared, for a moment. He felt, as if things were changing rapidly this year, even faster than they already had. The world was getting more dangerous, more complicated... And also, they were slowly growing up. His own weird, mortifying dreams were proving that. The fact, that their grade was allowed to visit the Yule Ball, as well, was also proving that. And Hermione, with her new front teeth, and that make-up stuff in her face, and that slick, shiny hair and everything, was probably the best prove of it all.

Hopefully, she would look her normal self again, tomorrow. Hopefully, she wasn't all rigged and different looking, when he'd go to have breakfast in a few hours. It wasn't like she hadn't looked... nice... in that blue dress robes, and with that hair-thing. She had. She'd positively beamed and twinkled. In fact, she'd looked kind of … amazing, if he was being honest. And it wasn't all because of some make-up, or because of her hair, or something. It was rather her own joy, her carefreeness, that made all that stuff look awesome on her.

But _Vicky_ was probably only interested in her, since she'd changed her teeth, wasn't he? And now, she was making her hair look straight for Vicky as well, and put whole layers of paint on her face for that douche, just to make him like her. She was basically changing everything about the way she looked, for some random idiot who only cared about that tournament, probably! And who couldn't even vocalise her name right!

Seriously, how could Victor Krum be interested in Hermione? He didn't know her at all, did he?! _Ron_ knew her, and Harry did. If Vicky really knew her, he wouldn't have influenced her to change her look so much, Ron decided. He would have known, that it was unnecessary. He would have told her about how funny she sometimes looked, whenever she rolled her eyes in annoyence. Or how lovely it was, when she bit her lip, uncertainly, whenever she was in one of her little moralic dilemmas. Or how exciting it felt, to row with her, - to watch her go totally mad, sometimes, when her hair would basically sizzle with invisible sparks and when her cheeks would turn totally pink... (Ron started to feel his own ears redden, as well, at this point...) But Vicky didn't tell Hermione any of this, and why? Because he didn't know her!

And if he _would_ start to know her, and to find out about all these other, tiny worlds of beauty, all the ones that existed above that new, blue-dressed, mascara-y version of Hermione Granger... then perhaps, things would change for real, after all. Ron slightly panicked, as he thought of this, of the possibility of Krum using Hermione in even another much more horrifying way... Of him misusing her friendliness and perhaps even fondness of him in some horrible way...

And there was Ron's whole aggression again.

" _Just because it's taken you three years, to notice, Ron, doesn't mean no one else has spotted I'm a girl!"_ *, she'd said, and he'd kind of laughed it off, because he didn't really now how to react otherwise...

In a way, she'd been right. He hadn't really thought of her as a girl, most of the time. It just made his life easier if he didn't pay that much attention to this, and instead saw her as his friend, primarily. Because that's what she was, alright? His best friend Hermione, that book-loving, funny, ridiculously smart pain in the neck. That bushy-haired, crazy know-it-all.

No, Ron didn't want things to change.

But now, as he fished that stupid Victor-Krum-doll from the paper box's ground, and mindlessly started to rip the ugly little limbs from it in a haze, Ron also found, that time wasn't moving quick enough. That he couldn't wait for this stupid tournament to be over, and _Vicky_ to be gone again. And Hermione, to be just herself, - however much of a girl or a woman or _whatever_ that might be. As long as she was still by his side, every day. And not by _Vicky's._

And with that thought in mind, Ron blew the last candle out, pushed the paper box back underneath his bed, and fell asleep. _Merry Christmas, again, Ron_ , he told himself, absently. _Merry Christmas._

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Hi guys! You've just read my very first HP-fan fic here, so please tell me what you think, if you have the time! :) I'm planning to post many more, and I'm still looking for a Beta, by the way. Constructive criticism is loved!

Have a nice day or night,

~ J :)


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